Over a fifth of all child deaths in England could be avoided by reducing deprivation, new report finds

Around 700 child deaths that occur in England each year might be avoided by reducing deprivation, finds a new NHS England-funded report published today [13 May]. The University of Bristol National Child Mortality Database (NCMD)-led analysis identified a clear association between the risk of death and level of deprivation for children in England, for all categories of death except cancer. Researchers from Bristol's NCMD , which gathers information on all children who die in England below the age of 18 years, aimed to identify, and quantify, any association between child mortality and child poverty, and learn lessons that could help save children's lives in future. The team analysed the records of 3,347 children who had died in England between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020. Using postcode data, researchers linked each child's residential address to the government's measures of deprivation - which is calculated using seven main areas (income, employment, education, health, crime, access to housing and services, and living environment), with one being the least, and ten the most deprived areas (known as deciles). The team found that, as deprivation increased, so did the proportion of deaths. For each increase in decile of deprivation, on average there was a relative ten per cent increase in the risk of death - so the rate is almost three times as high in the most deprived decile compared to the least.